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Moorings are never far from controversy

The public gets notoriously worked up about car parking and, similarly, the Harbour’s moorings policy is always on the edge of controversy. Much has happened over the last few years – not least significant improvements in mooring equipment as well as the abolition of the two-tier list (one for “locals” and the other for “second-home owners”).

The improvements are (now) pretty widely welcomed – the new pontoons, the soft deep-water mooring buoys, the availability of fresh water and so on. The policy of taking the moorings off the crumbling walls of Kingsbridge quay, although controversial at the time, is now well accepted. Indeed, the popularity of the pontoon there has created a waiting list which, of course, now gives rise to complaints (however there are still vacant foreshore moorings in Kingsbridge).

There are also vacant moorings in Frogmore creek (slightly more tidally constrained than Kingsbridge, but there’s not a lot in it), but currently none in South Pool. Elsewhere in the Harbour, the number of moorings in South Sands is being progressively reduced, creating a long waiting list there as a result. Those moorings are very exposed in a south easterly and are on top of a major seagrass jungle, which troubles Natural England. However, in order to reduce the scour damage, the Harbour staff have engineered seagrass-friendly moorings specially to cope with Salcombe’s large tides.

The amalgamation of the so-called A and B waiting lists some years ago occasionally still surfaces as a point of tension. The original distinction was supposed to be between those who paid full council tax and those who paid reduced council tax (as the result of owning another home elsewhere). However, some people were paying full council tax simply to qualify for a mooring while, as council tax returns were historically never checked, others who had moorings turned out never to have paid any council tax in the South Hams – one even said he had no need to, as he lived on his boat when he was in the area. The requirement for all homeowners to pay full council tax (apart, rather oddly, for those houses which are a “business”) led to better checking of eligibility, so freeing up a number of moorings, as well as allowing the two lists to be merged, thereby removing the need to judge whether some people were more local than others. But this, of course, has only encouraged more people to apply: so it is back to square one with a growing waiting list.

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